This morning, we officially announced Rockfish Brand Ventures, a new division that I couldn’t be more excited about. In fact, Brand Ventures is one of the major reasons I joined Rockfish six months ago. Since that time, a small group of us have been working to craft a new model that we think will create a disproportionate advantage for our
Today I’m excited to announce the launch of The Brandery, a new seed stage consumer marketing venture accelerator. The Brandery will be a three-month-long program held in Cincinnati, Ohio that is focused on turning your great idea into a successful, brand-driven start-up. For our inaugural class this Fall, we are selecting 5 companies, with each receiving $20,000 in seed funding,
On Sunday, I picked up a tweet from MeetUp CEO Scott Heiferman, who took notice about one of the subjects I tend to write / tweet about: .bbpBox{background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/95010920/Picture_82.jpg) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;}p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px}p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6}p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px}p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px}p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block} Interesting that a P&G marketer (@daveknox) tweets about venture capital. A snapshot
Broadly speaking, the most difficult thing in business is trying to make a sale to another company. This holds true whether this “sale” is an entrepreneur trying to raise capital, an agency pitching a new campaign idea or a start-up trying to get a brand to buy their platform. But despite this being one of the toughest things in business,
Lately there has been some good discussions about other companies acting like Venture Capitalists, especially ad agencies. Personally I have major concerns if an agency starts acting like a VC, especially if they are investing in New Media companies. The potential for conflicts of interest are huge. First, theses agencies need to be media-neutral. I need to trust my agency
